When we come to the keyboard as writers, we take our whole lives with us. No, this isn’t another long-winded blog post about writing what you know, it’s something else entirely. Something I’ve spent a long time celebrating, but only been able to put into words yesterday after reading an interview with David Mitchell on Salon.com.

I’ve spent my entire life being different. Unpopular. A freak, as an old neighbor so nicely yelled to my face five years ago. But I don’t think these things are bad, or were ugly experiences in my life. They strengthened me. Made me a better person. Because of those experiences, I am an individual, unafraid to think or speak up for myself, and do what I want - as long as it’s within the rules (I don’t even jaywalk).

How can this translate to writing? Easily.

There is this stratification among writers where they believe they must be a certain kind of writer. They wrote some science fiction, so they are a science fiction writer. They published three stories in literary fiction journals, so they can only write literary fiction. They want to write a memoir, so they must only write creative nonfiction to practice. I think this is limiting - not only to the stories a writer can tell, but also to the writer’s education in how to write.

I’ll get to the second point first:Approaching a literary fiction story is very different than approaching a fantasy story or a creative nonfiction piece. As I explained at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, “Approaching and writing literary fiction is much dirtier than fantasy. With literary fiction, you really get your hands in the viscera of life and expose it to the reader for them to see, while still offering them some hope to keep going. But with fantasy, you have to reach up and try to catch that one magical thing just out of the reader’s reach and hold it only briefly so they can catch a glimpse, and then let it go while they still have that sense of wonder, and before they see how it works.” And with creative nonfiction, you’re laying your life bare on a journey that you weave in and out of lessons to the reader; you have to be both witness and educator.

By learning how to approach each different avenue - applying what I learned in how to write literary fiction to my fantasy and science fiction stories, they became stronger stories, better stories. I started getting personal rejection letters. Yes, still rejection letters, but ones with feedback, asking me to submit again. And I used what I learned from writing literary fiction and fantasy to write the essay that got published on Salon.

I stretched my muscles. And I learned from my editor at Salon how to make a story truly personal, which I will use in editing my novel, and I used in writing my latest story.

Why pigeonholing limiting to the stories a writer tells?To paraphrase the RAC in Killjoys, “The Story is all.” I had an idea for a science fiction story. It came to me just before going to bed, and I scribbled the whole thing down furiously on 14 post-it notes. The story continued to evolve over the course of a month while I worked on my book. The main character changed, the location changed, the villains changed. I got an opening line, I had an ending, and the main character changed again. But the story remained science fiction. I’d decided I was good at science fiction and wanted to be more of a science fiction writer.

When I was writing it, the story was not science fiction. The story revealed itself as more weird-fiction/horror (no Lovecraft inspirations to be found). I didn’t scrap the story because the original idea was science fiction. I didn’t try to hammer in more of a science fiction feeling or edge, because I wanted it to be more obvious that was what I was trying to write. No, I let the story be what it wanted to be, because that is what I needed to do as a writer.

I have to trust myself and my ability that I can and am able to tell these stories in the genres they want to be told. Earlier this year, I was trying to write a literary fiction story and I realized it wasn’t working. I kept trying breathe life into this heroine in a world where she would always be a victim, and I realized she needed to exist in a science fiction universe. I was working with someone at the time who was helping me write the story, and she agreed. That particular story couldn’t be literary fiction because I realized I couldn’t do it, whereas I have written other literary fiction stories that have stood fine in the real world; those stories wanted to be told on this Earth, in our time.

To bring the two points together:As all writers need to write as much as they can, they also need to read as much as they can. I don’t believe in reading bad books just to make myself feel better about how good my writing is. That’s a kind of literary schadenfreude I don’t subscribe to because I don’t have time to read stuff that doesn’t improve my writing, instead I need to learn how people who write better than me do it.

I read books I enjoy in all sorts of genres. Fantasy, science fiction, literary fiction, historical fiction, poetry — I read a lot of poetry. I don’t read a lot of military fiction, because I don’t like it, but I’ve learned how to write combat and military scenes from going to panels at places like Origins Game Fair on how to write fight scenes and military battles. Plus I’ve gotten a lot about military history from reading historical fiction. There are a lot of brutal fights in Irvine Welsh’s books, and he writes wonderful literary fiction, and he choreographs very well, so I sort of use him as a study for fistfights and bar brawls. So you can learn a lot from unlikely places. Hell, although I learned a lot about writing emotional range from all the poetry I read, I also learned a lot from reading Jeff VanderMeer.

We become great by being ourselves, and being true to ourselves. That’s not only true in writing, that’s true in all things. I couldn't look in the mirror every morning if I was trying to live up to anyone else’s example but my own. Everyone marches to the beat of their own drummer, and some people’s keep consistent time. But my drummer must play in Amon Amarth — he has constant time signature changes, and there's lots of headbanging.

The Kenyon Review Writers Workshop was a wonderful experience and I wouldn't give it back for a million sunsets. It was unique for me in its Workshopness, in the fact that I could attend. As a graduate of Kenyon College, the campus is a safe-haven for me, like Base during a game of tag. While there, I feel as if I am under some otherworldly protection, immune to any of the anxieties that may plague me in the outside world. Kenyon has that sort of spell. I call it The Kenyon Effect. Any workshop anywhere else would have me revoking my tuition two days before the start.

David Lynn was a wonderful instructor. With his tutelage, I gained the respect for writing literary fiction while there. But I must have been The Kenyon Effect. It allowed me to attack real humans and their problems with poetry and precision, making me passionate for that visceral reality that only literary fiction can give.

But here I sit, with this beautiful concept of a story in front of me. It is timely, it is tangible, its characters leaping off the screen and trying to rope me in - and each day I remove the lasso and walk away. Nope.

At first I thought it was depression. But it wasn't. Then I thought it was the anxiety surrounding my sister's wedding. It's over now, and was better than something Walt Disney could have dreamed up. So I sat down at the computer again, ready to work. It wasn't the wedding either.

I read the story over, made some edits. One elbow on the table, chin in my hand. I sighed, I looked at my watch. I took too many cigarette breaks. I checked my email after every paragraph. And then I asked myself, "What's wrong here? Is it me? Or is it the story?"

It isn't the story. The story needs to be told, just not like this. I can't write literary fiction. I have no passion for it. There's no magic in it. Nothing otherworldly happens. It's not mired in historical fact. Nothing horrific happens. Nothing thrilling. Nothing but the sore truth of reality, with a dash of literary merit. And I realized that I'd failed you, David Lynn, and I'm sorry.

I need to be excited about what I'm writing. I can't chain myself to this table and roll my face on the keyboard until I come up with something publishable. I don't have that kind of patience or talent. There's the adage that however many monkeys handcuffed to however many typewriters can come up with Shakespeare, and I am sure whoever said that thought they were very clever, but I want to meet these monkeys. They must be amazing. Because millions of writers on millions of keyboards won't ever reach Shakespeare's caliber of notoriety or success. Despite how clever they are, how smart they are, or the quality of their typewriter.

That being said: I really don't want to be Shakespeare. I like the Internet too much.

So maybe tomorrow, after I'm done feeling great about this revelation, I'll look at this story and see how I can transplant these characters to another planet, or to another time. Or maybe throw them into a historical context that makes their situation all the more dire, and then way more interesting to me.

I like the story, it just doesn't speak to me how it is right now. But that doesn't mean it's dead in the water. And as my writer friend said to me: We Meet The Story In The Edits.

The conversation about Gandhi bored me, about the Germans’ War bored me, only the way the Englishwoman’s diamond ring shone off the sweat of her cocktail interested me; I followed it while she and Fullan held their conversation about appropriate things, ladylike things, dutiful things. My eyes wandered, the conversation suffocated by saris and suits, linen pants and nails painted to match lips. When not focused on politics or the looming Japanese, the race consumed Bombay, and now everyone was showing off to everyone here in the Maharaja’s box.

My mind had traveled far away from the pleasantness of January. From Bombay. From Ghandi, and from Burma. From wars, divorces, and obligations. And minutes, hours, days may have passed, before Fullan broke the spell.

“Sati,” she said. “Do you see?”

My head turned back to her and the Englishwoman.

“The Prince is looking at you,” Fullan said.

The Maharaja was indeed looking at me. His eyes were limitless and beckoning. I lowered my chin, and he raised his, his hand curling one finger to him, beckoning me.

Time stopped as I crossed the floor. Everyone was frozen in place, their words still in the air between them. I abandoned the American rocking chair, my cocktail, Fullan and her appropriate behavior. The Maharaja was the reason I’d come. When I reached him, his friends scattered like marbles, and he turned his body in a movement thick with drink, a condition I knew well.

“Have you come to see my horse today?” he asked.

“Which one is yours?” I asked.

“Come,” He took my elbow with a gentleman’s grace and lead me to the window, pointing at one of the horses in the January sun. “That one there, with the Jockey in red.” He turned back to me. “She will win. Her name is Princess Beautiful.”

I had been told how the Maharaja was the eighth richest man in the world; the second richest Indian Prince. He wore it well. His suit was so finely made, I could not see the stitching. His watch was ringed with diamonds. He wore a ruby on his right hand. He was modern Indian wealth, and I wanted every piece of it.

Then the bell sounded, sending the horses down the track, and the Maharaja whispering to my ear. Every bit of their bodies moving to push themselves forward as his words traveled through my skin, making it shiver. Their riders perching in the stirrups. Alert. Focused. I was standing on air. Floating. Weightless. As the horses turned, his body turned, his breath traveling down my neck in promises laced with whiskey and vermouth.

The Maharaja leaned back, as if the world remained the same. But mine was not the same, it had opened up. My thoughts were moving in tandem with the horses’ hooves. They passed the starting line again, and my mind quickened pace. I took my sari in my hand as his enveloped it, his palm smooth, his heartbeat heavy against my fingers. As one of the horses pulled forward, his shoulders raised, his eyes growing wide. He was swallowed by desire, taken by it, watching it unfold in front of him in all its chance and glory. And when another fell behind, he turned to me, and took me in.

As the horses’ bodies trembled, we trembled. As they breathed, we breathed. We had entered into this freely, quickly, professionally. We were not stumbling foals. We were yearlings, adept at the race, aware of every action we took, of every dip in the terrain. We ran neck and neck with each other, the Maharaja and I each craving victory. And when I looked him in the eye, I saw how he would become my husband, and I his second wife.

“A woman is as delicate as a horse,” he said. “Their bodies like machines, their temperament as fine. Horses are the world’s most beautiful animal, and a woman the world’s most precious thing.”

It was only race now, with his hand still on mine. We watched the power move forward, the same horse leading and others following in a fever behind him. Each hoof a thunder clap, pushing forward to the finish line. But I knew nothing except the Maharaja’s reaction. As the seconds tightened their grip, so did he. Like a butterfly perched on the edge of flight, I trembled with anticipation. Every part of him was in this moment: its wonder, its fervor, its gamble. He held his breath, and I held mine.

For the first time, I felt truly lost. This was going be forever, my mind always conjuring fireworks in reds and greens and golds until the horses crossed the finish line and the flashbulbs exploded into diamonds. Then the Maharaja turned to me, his eyes wild with reflection.